Technical Abstract:
Timely and efficient application of water to crops is an essential component of the efficient use of irrigation in agriculture. In regions with sufficient water resources the appropriate use of water will extend supplies and optimize production. In those regions with declining or insufficient water resources irrigation scheduling provides a mechanism for inuring the timely application of water in amounts needed by the crop and by limiting excessive irrigation can extend the water resource over both time and space. The BIOTIC irrigation protocol uses a combination of a species-specific temperature threshold and a region-specific time threshold to schedule irrigation. BIOTIC has been implemented in a variety of crops, in several regions and with drip and sprinkler irrigation systems. In all instances it has been shown to be as effective as soil moisture and ET based irrigation scheduling. A primary advantage of BIOTIC versus other methods is its simplicity in terms of equipment and end user operation. Development of hardware and software for implementation of BIOTIC in production environments has been investigated in conjunction with ag producers in on-farm demonstrations.